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Topic: New and just needing people who understand (Read 471 times)

Good Morning everyone. I have read a lot on this forum, but have never joined. I have appreciated all of your post. My life is at rock bottom right now and I apologize if this is long. Ten years ago I had what I though was bad anxiety and panic attacks. It was for a total of a year. It ended with me losing thirty pounds and being brought to hospital by my then boyfriend. Meet a great doctor who ran test assured me I was okay and started me on Xanax ( for three weeks only until my anti depressants kicked in) and paxil. Long story short , it helped tremendously and gave me life back. 5 years ago I made an awful mistake, I decided to get off all meds ( had been switched to Effexor a year earlier) because I wanted to not be on anything and worry about having it with me. 2 years ago the insanity came back. I have always had cardiophobia even slightly on my meds but nothing like this. I told my now husband it was coming back. It started to get to be a everyday worry. I left the hospital I loved to work at because I couldn't stand being in the situation of seeing trauma anymore. I was CONVINCED I had heart problems, even though I am a medical professional. I went to ER after ER seeking answers. I stopped going outside and I stopped being a good mother. I stopped being a good wife. I stopped everything. It's like I'm already dead just not in the ground. Finally I went to see a doctor friend of mine in cardiology who I respect fully. (Husband made me go.) And had an echo, stress test, angiogram etc done. All clean. That's the best work up u can get and guess what, it worked! Now I wish with all my might it hadn't. My anxiety then took up something else to scare the crap out of me with. I am now terrified, extremely terrified of swallowing and choking. This is far worse than the heart anxiety and I n ever thought I would say that! I beg for the days I was worried about my heart. I haven't had solids in 3 weeks I have lost 20 pounds and I am down to a glass of water a day and ensures or boost (so still getting enough calories and nutrients). I feel like my own saliva will choke me, I carry a cup to spit in. I have lost it big time. My throat always burns and worse of all, I take medicine that has bad withdrawal if I don't have it. I'm afraid to swallow it because it feels like it sits in my throat. I think my wonderful understanding husband is at his wits end. I don't know what to do anymore. So sorry for the long post just needed to vent where I felt safe to say those things. Thank you.

Hi there, I think everyone here can relate to what you are going through to an extent, and I'm sorry that you're scared of swallowing. Have you ever considered CBT? Talking to a psychologist that understands your problem could really help. Also, if you were doing really well on Paxil why don't you try taking that again? you could probably get it in a dissolvable pill.

Thanks for your reply. I have an appointment tomorrow at 11 30 to see a anxiety clinic. Not sure if they will keep me or not but at this point I don't even care if they do as long as it helps I suppose. I want to go back on meds but the medicine I have to take for another medical problem apparently interacts with all the SSRI so I'm kind of stuck unfortunately.

Keep moving forward! One step at a time and continue to try techniques, methods, medications to manage the anxiety. You will come to a point of finding ways to calm down again. Anxiety tends to be cyclical and it is a chronic condition for some of us so we have to continually manage it, akin to someone who has to control their diabetes. Setbacks extremely common with this condition. Find a psychiatrist who specializes in anxiety. Take care

Thank you very much for the words of advice. Hopefully after my appointment tomorrow I will have a little more insight. I'm in a very dark place indeed today. Just worked up the nerve to take my medicine so at least physically will feel better although mentally will be worse. My throat always burns after I take it and it starts the whole cycle again. Funny how I can not logically view this when I have always been very logical. Thanks again and take care.

Welcome, and you've come to the right place. I think the one thing I can tell you is that anxiety, when you have it and get rid of it in one area will always find another opening and go someplace else. We have sensitive neural tubes. I used to have health anxiety, that has left completely, and now I have depersonaliztion which I'm working on with through meds and CBT. You can also have depsersoanlization, I guess, when you are totally focused on your health, too.

Hang in. My big fear was being admitted into a psychiatroic ward. Guess what. You havetobe suicidal or threatening tokill someone, so you'll be an outpatient. There's nothing wrong with your ability to wallow, you know in your heart of hearts, this is the result of your anxiety.

Get onto "chat," too. There you will connect with plenty of people who have what you have and are working through it. You will recover. You havein the past. This, however, as one ofthe previous posters said, is a cyclical thing. Comes and goes.

Sounds like health anxiety, dear. I'm wondering if you google your symptoms like so many of us with health anxiety people do? If you do I would suggest that you STOP. Like cold-turkey-don't-ever-google-again kind of stop. It's nothing but a dangerous downward spiral.

Health anxiety is complex but also kind of simple. We convince ourselves we have something (a disease, mental illness etc.) and then we google the symptoms and/or are constantly aware of everything our bodies are doing and this unravels into an obsession with a various illness. Eventually, for most of us, we soon become obsessed with another illness. Constant body checking and googling symptoms do nothing but add fuel to the fire and reinforce the anxiety and irrational thought process that something is wrong.

Thank you for all the kind words! Wow I actually feel better after reading these. And thank you very much for the prayers, they are always welcome and needed. I am looking forward to tomorrow but do not want to be disappointed if they can not help. I have to take my medicine again in an hour and am already getting nervous about it. My husband has tried so hard to be compassionate and understanding but I am very self absorbed with this at the moment and am not being a very good spouse. I also dream of food lol. I have been living off of ensure so everything smells good to me. I hope you all have an anxious free night and find some peace. I will let everyone know what doctor says tomorrow. Thanks again!

Try focusing on getting to a psychiatrist who can help you. Its going to be hard but put all your effort into getting yourself into see a psychiatrist. If the medication helped before it can help again. Ask your Mom to help you to get you to one. Have her drive you and even go into the appointment with you if you need it. Don't give up.

Sometimes I get shortness of breath. I am on Lexapro and clonazepam and I still get anxiety related shortness of breath. I now just shrug my shoulders and say "oh well, it will pass" and in a few days, it does. Our bodies manifest anxiety in crazy ways and yours is playing a major game with you. Your anxiety is tricking you into believing you are sick.

Don't give up! You felt okay before you can feel okay again. If your Mom can help you, let her help you.

I am terribly sorry to hear about your new phobia....(as well as the previous ones). I am still consumed with cardiophobia. The one thing we can all attest to here is that YOU ARE NOT ALONE in feeling anxiety like this. I know that knowing that does not stop the anxiety...but, I think the important thing to remember and tell yourself is that you realize what is going on now...its anxiety. Nothing more. Nothing less. I can totally identify with the hopping from one fear to the next. And isn't it funny (not actually) how the newest fear is always the worst and how we would trade it for the previous. Rest assurred that "this too shall pass." I think that it takes a certain something to break our fear. Like a light is suddenly turned on and we realize why we shouldn't fear the things we do.I believe that that will happen for you.It's also funny (once again...not really ) to hear other peoples' main phobias and think "oh, well theres no reason that they should worry about that." Its entirely subjective. There are people that will never know or understand what a panic attack is.I would like to convey to you (in hopes that this will ease your mind) that you will not choke.Its natural to hone in on feelings with the throat or swallowing when you overthink it - pay too much attention to the sensations.Sucking and swallowing is an innate ability that we were born with. Its easy to pay a lot of attention to the sensations of it and freak yourself out.I wish you the absolute best and hope that you will soon abandon your current anxiety and replace it with positive thoughts.

Hi arwashington. I was just reading up the thread a bit -- are you taking Xanax? My experience with Xanax is that it is chalky and does leave a taste in your mouth when you take it. It sort of rubs off on you as it goes down. That's all it is -- just a pill flavor. Just drink a glass of water and swish some Ensure around in your month if you find yourself fixating on the pill taste.

Also, I don't know if this might help, but next time to take medicine, join the chat and talk to people. I think we could be reassuring and positive and get through the anxiety together. That's why this forum/chat site is here. And honestly arwashington, I really do understand your fears to a certain degree, because in the past I had similar ones. I was afraid of swallowing pills, and was over attuned to saliva and my own swallowing. Fortunately I was able to shrug off that fear in someway or another. I can't remember how or why. But you will too. You deserve to be happy and free from these terrible shackles of anxiety. Wouldn't it be nice to spend time with your husband and just enjoy what's going on around you, instead of what you think/fear is going on within you?Trust me, I know this feeling. And I know how helpless it can make me feel. The good thing is that you know you've felt these feelings many times before and they always subside, and you never really choke. It's hard to find the assertiveness to believe the reality that it's all in your head - I know how that is. I hope that us affirming that on here eases your mind a bit. Just know...we DO indeed understand. You're not crazy. Infact, quite the contrary, you are obviously really rather bright. You're just dealing with some issues. Issues that are not perhaps uncommon. But issues that can be debilitating.I don't know you personally, obviously, but You responded to my post and really made me feel a lot better and gave me hope that my anxiety was understandable. And, I do really understand your phobia, like I said.I will be praying with hopeful and positive thoughts that you, arwashington, will find peace - that the light will come on and you will find your way out of this anxiety...and any other anxieties. I want you to live a life that you deserve - happy, stress-free, outwardly-focused, fun, relaxing, energetic, etc.

Ditto on what Aaron Davis said. My "crazy" thoughts were different but the same feeling. Just cling on to the scraps of evidence that have proof to support the contrary to what you believe. And eventually your worry will pass. It will, I promise. It might move to a new worry but as that happens again and again it will teach you what are real worries and what are not and you will make it through.